Lion & Rose owner seeks to join Affordable Care Act challenge

Published 7:28 am, Wednesday, December 12, 2012

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Allen Tharp

Allen Tharp

Lion & Rose owner seeks to join Affordable Care Act challenge

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A San Antonio restaurateur has asked permission to join Oklahoma's legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act — arguing that his restaurants don't offer health benefits to their minimum-wage workers, don't intend to and don't think the federal government can force them to do so.

Last week, GC Restaurants and several related companies asked U.S. District Judge Ronald White of the Muskogee, Okla.-based U.S. District Court of Eastern Oklahoma for permission to intervene in Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt's legal challenge to the health care law, better known as Obamacare.

Like Pruitt, the restaurants' owner — San Antonio's Allen Tharp, a local tea party leader whose holdings include a chain of five Lion & Rose restaurants and pubs here and in Austin — argues that health coverage mandates and taxes can't be imposed on businesses in states that have not established health insurance exchanges.